This video teaches students about the chemical reactions that occur when the ocean absorbs carbon dioxide from the air, the pH scale, and the effects ocean acidification can have on marine organisms.
There is an interactive quiz for students to check their understanding about ocean acidification and the pH scale.
Teaching Tips
Positives
The video does a good job of explaining how carbon dioxide levels have risen in recent centuries because of humans.
A full transcript of the video is available.
Additional Prerequisites
Students should be familiar with the pH scale and ions.
Differentiation
Chemistry classes could pause the video at 1:53 and challenge students to solve the chemical equation.
Math classes could practice calculating the percentage difference between two pH numbers using logarithmic equations.
Biology classes could use this video when discussing the pH scale, molecular bonds, homeostasis, the properties of water, ocean ecosystems, coral reefs, and chemical reactions.
Other resources on this topic include this video on the impacts of ocean acidification on marine life, this video and experiment that shows how acidic environments dissolve calcium bicarbonate, and this experiment and lesson on determining the amount of carbon dioxide in ocean water.
Scientist Notes
This video offers a detailed look at how increased carbon dioxide levels in the atmopshere are having a direct impact on the acidity of the ocean. Ocean acidification remains a serious consequence of anthropogenic climate change. This resource is recommended for teaching.
Standards
Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS)
ESS2: Earth's Systems
HS-ESS2-2 Analyze geoscience data to make the claim that one change to Earth’s surface can create feedbacks that cause changes to other Earth systems.
HS-ESS2-6 Develop a quantitative model to describe the cycling of carbon among the hydrosphere, atmosphere, geosphere, and biosphere.
ESS3: Earth and Human Activity
HS-ESS3-6 Use a computational representation to illustrate the relationships among Earth systems and how those relationships are being modified due to human activity.
LS2: Ecosystems: Interactions, Energy, and Dynamics
HS-LS2-6 Evaluate the claims, evidence, and reasoning that the complex interactions in ecosystems maintain relatively consistent numbers and types of organisms in stable conditions, but changing conditions may result in a new ecosystem.
